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Chapter 3

Summer of 1977

It was the end of seventh grade, I was twelve years old and discovered sex and alcohol that summer. My grandparents were visiting, and my whole family went up to the mountains to go fishing for the day. I had met this really pretty girl who lived up the street; she was sixteen. She came over that June day and brought a bunch of her dad’s Playboy magazines. We got into my dad’s liquor cabinet and took a shot out of every bottle while staring at the beautiful naked women in the magazine.

Before long, she and I were naked on my bed together, making out and touching and kissing each other everywhere. It was my first experience with sex, except the innocent kissing games when I was seven and eight with the girls next door. We didn’t hear much about homosexuality then, but it was about much of a no-no to talk about as masturbating.

I returned to eighth grade a completely different girl, even joined the cheerleading squad and all the sudden was included into the popular crowd. That’s when I started meeting boys and ditching school. At that time, I was sleeping with one of the sophomores at our school. He would pick me up in his truck, and we would go to my house while my mom and dad were still at work. We’d smoke pot, drink my dad’s beer, and have sex. When my dad would notice his beer missing, I would tell him I washed my hair with it. I said in one of my magazines, I read beer was good for your hair.

My parents noticed the change in me; they knew it wasn’t good, but they didn’t know what I was doing. I had just become disrespectful and started having a bad temper if I didn’t get what I wanted. I did a complete 180 from the pitiful unpopular ugly duckling to the disobedient rebellious party girl.

I was still shoplifting, but now it was for me: cigarettes, makeup, and sexy thong underwear. We had a smoking area at our school we dubbed Cancer Corner. We could smoke with a permission slip from our parents. Of course, my mother would never permit it. I forged a note saying I was her and gave my daughter permission to smoke. I guess my eighth-grade handwriting gave it away because they called her at work to ask her if this was her note. That was the first time I got busted doing something wrong and was grounded, of course, but that didn’t stop me from doing what I wanted. I didn’t respect them or take them seriously. I was 13 years old, my parents went to a new years eve party; leaving my brother and I alone. I decided to throw a party and every kid on the block came. It got out of control; my little brother wanted no part in it and locked himself in his room, a really big girl who had a crush on my little brother broke down his door because he wouldn’t let her in.

My parents returned and everyone scattered out the back door as my dad was walking in, at this time I had just had knee surgery; I was wearing a cast from my ankle to my thigh and my dad chased me out to the backyard. Some how I scaled our chainlink fence and ran up the street away from him. He was the most angry I had seen him thus far.

A week later there was a for sale sign in our front yard. My parents wanted to move me away from the “bad influences” in our neighborhood. (little did they know I would turn out to be the bad influence.)

The first time I got busted drinking, I was at a party the night before drinking Everclear and Kool-Aid. I must have blacked out. All I remember was waking up with different sheets on my bed. My mom started screaming at me that I was throwing up all over the night before and she had to basically carry me to the couch to change my sheets and pajamas and clean me up. I don’t remember it ever being talked about after that, but there was so much I did, in just one year, my stories looking back would seem like five years of trouble.

I stole the extra set of car keys out of my mom’s purse one day when she was home for lunch. Of course, I didn’t have a license at the time, but my best friend and I took it joyriding. We hit a dip really hard but kept driving it around; I’m surprised we made it back into the driveway. I had cracked the oil pan and blew the engine. Needless to say, I was not getting a car when I turned sixteen.